Sounds interesting. I like your concept. But keep in mind that you have to relate the Incidents to the Problems in a one to one or a one to many basis.

My main concern here would be not necessarily the technicalities of having Incident records and Problem records related, but rather the metrics and reporting. So for example if I wanted to have reports Problems and the Incidents they cause, I want to make sure that I'm catching all the related records. I would not want to have a report in which I miss an Incident or two. My rationale being that usually a single Problem is linked to multiple Incidents.

This is just a very technical (tool related) concern. Your original idea about having different categories for Incidents and Problems is excellent.

I think it is an excellent approach. Base your incident categories on the services you provide, and the type of Incident the user faces... it will be easier to categorize for the support team, will match the customer point of view.

For categorizing the problems, use a "root cause" approach. This is what will make most sense from the problem management point of view.

Regaring the reporting question, as incidents should be linked to problems, you should not have any orphean problems, and should be able to build the reports you need, if your reporting tool allows for it..._________________Better have remorse than regrets